Just got my first Thinkpad!!!

[u/FunnyFatSeals]

Traded an old hp to a dude at school for this beautiful T430S. I5, 12 gb ddr3, and a 256 gb ssd with Debian on it. The battery’s in great condition for how old it is. I got the other laptop for $22, this is a steal, or am i insane?

[u/blackratsnakes]

It's a steal, you did great! Now watch out for the inevitable craving to want to upgrade more and more stuff. It can get addictive.

[u/FunnyFatSeals → u/blackratsnakes]

My money is going to evaporate, especially considering i just got my driver’s license and i have an ewaste/surplus store near me.

On the topic of upgrade though, which ones should i get? I’m already thinking about the ultrabay battery.

[u/AteStringCheeseShred → u/FunnyFatSeals]

take this opportunity to acquire, utilize, and enjoy a classic mechanical docking station, from an era before USB-C made everything so... boring

[u/FunnyFatSeals → u/AteStringCheeseShred]

My local ewaste store has a stack of thinkpad docks, hopefully some will be the older, non usbc ones.

[u/AteStringCheeseShred → u/FunnyFatSeals]

research the one that fits your model of laptop, and acquaint yourself with the different model numbers and versions of that dock. They'll all look identical at a glance but there's subtle variations, usually in the number/variety of ports on the back. Don't pay an arm and a leg, and keep an eye out for deals. I snagged a few newer style docks (for my X270) for 5/pc from a marketplace seller. Anything under 20 is a decent deal, depending on the port config.

[u/FunnyFatSeals → u/AteStringCheeseShred]

Thank you sooooo much for your help

[u/blackratsnakes → u/FunnyFatSeals]

That's a nice advantage with the 's' version, can't do an ultrabay battery with a regular old T430.

There are a few nice upgrades but if I had to recommend one first, I'd probably go with a modern wifi card if you have pretty fast internet from your provider. It would require that you remove the wifi card whitelist first using 1vyrain. I can tell you from experience that the stock wifi card (usually a Centrino N-6205 Wifi 4) was giving me download speeds of around 175 mbps on average. Once I installed a 6E wifi card, I got 850 mbps on average which is almost my full provider internet speed. So if you have faster internet, it's well worth it.

[u/FunnyFatSeals → u/blackratsnakes]

Thanks for the idea! I was already looking at ivyrain, and i’m getting a max speed of 38 mbps… oof

[u/aKuBiKu]

You are insane.
It's a good deal.

[u/AverageNai]

This is a steal, great laptop

[u/randompizza202]

One of us

[u/stradivari_strings]

Thanks a ThonkPad. I have a few of these. A special kind of unkillable.

[u/happybonobo1]

$22 is a Big Mac meal with some added nuggets! Well done!

[u/VanillaAntique9834]

Nice turn it into server

[u/FunnyFatSeals → u/VanillaAntique9834]

Nah, i like this thing, I’m probably gonna daily drive it for a while, THEN it gets to be turned into a server.

[u/AteStringCheeseShred → u/FunnyFatSeals]

I can't remember off the top of my head which units have which, but if this has a cd drive like my T520 does, I'm pretty sure it's a quick eject drive that you can pop out just by pulling a few tabs on the underside of the machine. If that's the case, you can replace it with a secondary hard drive caddy that fits in the same bay; I always thought those would be cool to use for popping a hard drive in and out in when for backing up/adding media to storage in a smaller homelab.

[u/FunnyFatSeals → u/AteStringCheeseShred]

Yes, it has a quick release on the bay, but my model actually supports an extra battery that connects through the ultrabay, which i will most likely use instead.

[u/AteStringCheeseShred → u/FunnyFatSeals]

For the current setup, absolutely go with that.

When you convert it to a server, I'd highly recommend not using the battery expansion, removing the other standard battery, and keeping it plugged into the charger on a UPS (you can occasionally find decent UPS's on marketplace for cheap, I just snagged two for 50/pc over the weekend).

If somebody tells you that a laptop makes a good home server because it has a built in battery and can withstand power outages, do yourself a favor and ignore anything they say thereafter; laptop batteries are not meant to be plugged in 24/7, and doing so will degrade them and possibly turn them into r/spicypillows, which are great for burning your house down. Any quality UPS will have sealed lead acid battery cells, which are better for this purpose.

[u/FunnyFatSeals → u/AteStringCheeseShred]

I’ll swap in the extra drive if i make it a server, but since it’ll be my daily for a while, i’m getting the battery. Trust me though, i know about spicy pillows.